


The Sounds of Heresy

by rompafrolic



Category: Homeworld
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-05-08 23:38:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14704866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rompafrolic/pseuds/rompafrolic
Summary: Kith Gaalsien has many technological marvels, yet these are nothing compared to their devotion to Sajuuk and the art of war.





	1. Seraph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only the brave or foolish willingly face the wrath of the Seraph Honor Guard Cruiser

From a distance of two kilometres the deep thud of the main armament of the Gaalsien _Seraph_ Cruiser is heard a significant time after the slug impacts. You feel the impact before you hear the shot. Think on that for a moment. The ground buckles and rumbles and warps in strange ways. You’re thrown off your feet. One moment you are going about your business, the next wondering why and when the world ended.

The weapon is fearsome indeed. And that description was what you experience behind armour and underground. For a person on the surface the experience is worse. The shockwave from the passage of the slug displaces and heats the air for several metres to either side. For a moment it seems that a bright lance has seared its way across your vision, and visited fury upon some poor soul. It is the bright wrath and fury of the desert made real. The point of impact is horror. The shockwave alone pulverises metal, electronics, rock. The impact drives a fist-size slug of steel into whatever has the misfortune of receiving it. It is not stopped by something so puny as sheets of armour. It is stopped only by the cold hard earth, and even then only after a metre or so of shattered rock. Even a near miss on an armoured vehicle risks killing the occupants.

The only vehicles truly capable of taking a hit from those monsters and being capable of carrying on are the heaviest of cruisers. A Naabali cruiser can take several of those shots to the front armour plate and keep going for quite a while, retaliation is something of a different matter. When the shot hits the front of a cruiser the whole thing rings like a gong. Veteran crews boast that they know how many hits their craft can take until it finally falls apart. Supposedly the sound the impact makes changes as more hits register. If you ask me there’s something wrong with those crews. Any sane man would rather be far, far away from an angry _Seraph_ Cruiser.

The worst part is that you never see the things. Like lightning out of a blue sky you world is turned upside down, and you never know until you go to pick up the pieces. Fleet Intelligence says that the best way to eliminate a _Seraph_ is with massed air strikes. If a fighter scrambles at base Beta-4 it arrives here in five minutes. In five minutes a _Seraph_ can fire another twelve shots and disappear into the deep desert once again. No. The only chance a small out-of-the-way outpost like ours has is constant vigilance. If we spot it before it comes into range, we’ve done our job.

There’s still a small problem with that though. A _Seraph_ is never alone. They always have a sandskimmer escort, and they always operate in pairs. Which handily leads to the reason I’m currently hidden, half buried in the sand, in the shade of a rock outcropping while two _Seraphs_ and an uncomfortable number of skimmers go by.

The nameless outpost I am posted to has a network of sensors around it, and maintaining that is my primary job. So it seems like I am cursed by the gods to have been caught finishing repairing a far-flung sensor when the skimmers showed up. My only chance at survival is in hiding then making the long trek back to the outpost without being seen. Of course, that assumes that the outpost is still there when I get back.


	2. Skimmer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sandskimmer makes a particular impression on its witnesses.

A Gaalsien Sandskimmer is at once louder, larger, and far faster than you might think. Your first warning of a Sandskimmer's approach is the howl of its engines. Arcane power holds the thing exactly one metre and twenty-two centimetres above the ground. The howl is from the wind rushing downwards and backwards, blowing sand every which way. When you hear the howl you know that the Gaalsien are coming for you. When deactivated and resting on the sand a Sandskimmer is already taller than a man. Supposedly the things fold up for storage, much like our assault vehicles do, but that information matters little when a howling, 2-ton, floating piece of the deserts' wrath is coming for you.  
  
It's funny really. These things are drones. The desert scum uses them as scouts, screens, and raiders, according to the briefings. The briefings fall far short of the reality. The guns can cut through inches of steel, it can turn on the spot at 120km/h and can change direction completely in less than four seconds. A human pilot would be pulped by that kind of force. The worst part is that Sandskimmers are never alone. Literally anything could be with them, just lurking beyond the next dune. Perhaps a handful of railguns, perhaps a single armoured craft, perhaps a whole raiding party.  
  
The alarms are familiar after six months of being assigned to this base. They come at irregular intervals, they come at night, at day, and it takes a Sandskimmer at full speed exactly fourty-six seconds to go from the edge of our sensors range to the inner ring of static defences. Sometimes the alarm is only for a single contact dipping in and out of range. Occasionally it's for a large group which goes after our lightly defended sensor net. And rarely they come up to the edge of the inner defences' range. They only ever test that range, as if making sure it hasn't changed. I am forever dreading the day that I'll get to my post within the required sixty seconds only to see the wreckage of the inner defences and the glint of incoming railgun slugs.  
  
The fools in the cities don't understand the realities of life on this planet, and the howl of the Sandskimmer awakens the truth of that reality in all who hear it. It is the howl of a fanatic's judgement, come to purge you of your sins. And yet, here we are, desperately holding on to the little piece of green we can while the wind, the barbarians, and the Sandskimmers howl beyond the walls. There will come a day when those walls won't be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured that the Gaalsien units weren't as silent as they are ingame. They need to keep that mass floating, and that needs huge amounts of energy, which means they need cooling systems. Either way there's going to be energy wastage so I assume that comes out as a heat haze for the larger vehicles and as loud sound for the smaller ones. I figure that there's scale issues behind that reasoning.


End file.
